Short stories; United States -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction
The woman reeked of the city. I hope you know what I mean. She bore the
stamp, and seal, and imprint of it. It had ground its heel down on her
face. At the front of her coat she wore a huge bunch of violets, with a
fleshly tuberose rising from its center. Her furs were voluminous. Her
hat was hidden beneath the cascades of a green willow plume. A green
willow plume would make Edna May look sophisticated. She walked with
that humping hip movement which city women acquire. She carried a
jangling handful of useless gold trinkets. Her heels were too high, and
her hair too yellow, and her lips too red, and her nose too white, and
her cheeks too pink. Everything about her was "too," from the black
stitching on her white gloves to the buckle of brilliants in her hat.
The city had her, body and soul, and had fashioned her in its metallic
cast. You would have sworn that she had never seen flowers growing in a
field.
Said she to Tony:
"Got a Kewaskum Courier?"
As she said it the man stopped at the stand and put his question. To
present this thing properly I ought to be able to describe them both at
the same time, like a juggler keeping two balls in the air at once.
Kindly carry the lady in your mind's eye. The man was tall and rawboned,
with very white teeth, very blue eyes and an open-faced collar that
allowed full play to an objectionably apparent Adam's apple. His hair
and mustache were sandy, his gait loping. His manner, clothes, and
complexion breathed of Waco, Texas (or is it Arizona?)
Said he to Tony:
"Let me have the London Times."
Well, there you are. I turned an accusing eye on Tony.
"And you said no stories came your way," I murmured, reproachfully.
"Help yourself," said Tony.
The blonde lady grasped the Kewaskum Courier. Her green plume appeared
to be unduly agitated as she searched its columns. The sheet rattled.
There was no breeze. The hands in the too-black stitched gloves were
trembling.
I turned from her to the man just in time to see the Adam's apple leaping
about unpleasantly and convulsively. Whereupon I jumped to two
conclusions.
Conclusion one: Any woman whose hands can tremble over the Kewaskum
Courier is homesick.
Conclusion two: Any man, any part of whose anatomy can become convulsed
over the London Times is homesick.
She looked up from her Courier. He glanced away from his Times. As the
novelists have it, their eyes met. And there, in each pair of eyes there
swam that misty haze about which I had so earnestly consulted Tony. The
Green Plume took an involuntary step forward. The Adam's Apple did the
same. They spoke simultaneously.
"They're going to pave Main Street," said the Green Plume, "and Mrs.
Wilcox, that was Jeri Meyers, has got another baby girl, and the ladies
of the First M. E. made seven dollars and sixty-nine cents on their
needle-work bazaar and missionary tea. I ain't been home in eleven
years."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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